Life Abroad﻿

Hey everybody! How are you all enjoying Christmas? Are you spending time with your families? I have to admit, I have been feeling a bit homesick these last few days. So, I would like to give a big shout-out to my friends and family. I love you all and I miss you!

Okay, so where were we? How about we start with breakfast. Now, a traditional Spanish breakfast consists of something sweet with some coffee or tea. The same goes for Italians, so I think it must be a southern European thing; they just don't like having heavy meals first thing in the morning. In fact, other than the English, none of the European countries do.

Although they don't like heavy food in the morning, apparently the old Spanish men do like to make their coffee a little bit Scottish...

At the cafe I went to the first day, almost every table of old men had one or two bottles of liquor for their coffee. In addition, I learned that women used to not even be allowed in the cafes, because it was where the men would hang out and shoot the breeze. It seems to be a universal law that any cafe you go into will have a table of old men sitting and talking for hours on end.

Anyway, back to the breakfast at the house I was staying at. Ours was more northern European, consisting of bread, many delicious Spanish cheeses, olives, jam, yogurt, and baba ghanoush. Okay, baba ghanoush is not European, but it is a typical Middle Eastern breakfast food that consists of mashed eggplant, olive oil, optional tahini (roasted sesame butter), and garlic. It kind of looks like hummus, only darker. Sooo good.

Later that day, Karimah and went for a walk around the house and saw pomegranate, orange, lemon, fig, and almond trees. There was also another type of fruit I have never seen before that looked like a mix between yellow apples and persimmons--I think they were called Loquats.

There were many freshly-tilled fields and orchards in the area, and I noticed how rocky the soil was. Karimah guessed that the reason all of the roads are lined with short stone walls is because they had to do something with the all rocks they found in the fields. That makes sense to me. That's probably also why all of the houses are made of stones, creating a very rustic atmosphere.

Later that day we went to San Salvador, which is the tallest mountain on the island. On top of the mountain was--you guessed it--another old monastery. My camera ran out of batteries, so I didn't get very many pictures.

That evening, Kati gave a presentation about a book her mother had written about her time as a political prisoner in Spain for ten years during the Franco regime. One day, she came home from school to find that a bomb had gone off in front of her house; her mother was in pieces, strewn across the living room. She began working as a secretary for a rebel office, and everyone who worked there was arrested. While in prison, she was sentenced to death twice, but someone protected her (she never found out who), and she was never executed.

She wrote that when she was in prison there were clearer morals than there were outside the prison. For example, there were children in that prison, and the rule was that if you they were hungry and you had food, you had to give it to them. It was very important to show solidarity and to help one another, especially since many of the other prisoners were also there for political reasons.

When she was released, she got a taxi and mentioned to the driver that she couldn't believe she was free after being a political prisoner for ten years. He said nothing to her the entire trip. She later found out from her family that everyone was afraid to associate with political prisoners, for fear they would be linked to them and also thrown in jail. Then, all of her friends and family pretended like she had never been in prison. Whenever she spoke of it they seemed completely uninterested, even though those ten years were incredibly important to her life.

The proceeds of the book go to mothers who have children in jail. Unfortunately, it is only available in Spanish and German--hopefully it will be translated to English soon. I went ahead and bought a German edition for myself and a Spanish edition for any friends who speak Spanish.

This story is important because this same exact situation is happening in countries such as Morocco, Syria, and (when Ghadafi was in power) Lybia. In fact, after Ghadafi was defeated there was a rush to find all of his underground prisons that only he knew about, so that the people could be fed.

After the presentation we had dinner and then our meeting. Once again, I was asked to sing something at the end. So, the only thing that came to a mind was a song I sang while in Fort Hays Singers: a slower, more jazzy version of "I Will" by the Beatles. So, I can now honestly say that I sang the Beatles at a Sufi Muslim meeting.

And then we had a Middle Eastern dance party.

I have one final thing to tell you about before I end this post: RyanAir. RyanAir is a discount airline for Europe; however, they make alot of their money by charging extraordinary prices for anything additional. For example, you have to print your ticket beforehand or else it costs 60 euros to print it at the desk. Stuff like that. Well, their flight attendants are also sales people--they walk down the isles trying to give out magazines, sell food, drinks, perfume, and even scratch-ticket games. I found it funny and sad at the same time. Oh! And I got to s